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[cyrohound]

This is my first long term fort, because usually I make a fort and go "I could build this better" and start a new fort within about 3 years, so I've never really stuck around long enough to encounter any serious goblin threat.

So I have only one squad of 10 Dwarves, but they're all legendary in pretty much every skill that matters, and have mostly bronze armor with some imported steel weapons, shields, and helms sprinkled in (I'm currently candy hunting, but it's slow going). I then got a goblin "invasion". This invasion had about 50 goblins who were very quickly murdered by my squad with no help from traps or anything and no injuries or casualties on my side. My squad just murdered them and went back to training. At what point should I be concerned about goblin numbers? I would think that at some point they could overwhelm my squad of dorfs, but that hasn't been the case so far.

If I get Adamantine weapons and don't wake up the circus will I be fairly OK from Goblin invasions?

[anewaname]

What do you know about the nearest goblin site? They might send another 50 goblins and add 20 supporting trolls or beak dogs. Will your 10 dwarfs be able to endure the fight without becoming exhausted? It might be worth training up a a number of war animals or another squad, to give you options for the next siege.

[PatrikLundell]

The main problem of a small elite force in DF is exhaustion. You simply get tired by lopping of heads left, right, and center, so eventually the horde will get you.

As to the actual question: I don't know. I use traps and engineering to deal with threats unless risking dorfs is absolutely necessary.

[cyrohound]

That's fair. I guess I'll train another squad. So do Goblin Hordes ever get to the point where you've killed so many of their members without losing any of your own that they avoid your fort like the plague? Because that would be kind of cool. Goblin 1:"No raid dat fort." Goblin 2:"Why not?" "Goblin 1: Crazy Dorfs live there."

[PatrikLundell]

Nope.

[smithist]

There is a cap to the numbers they send. It's in init.txt (or d_init.txt I get them mixed up) and can be edited if you want.

Point being there will come a time where you'll know your current military can handle their worst.

[mirrizin]

Had a massive goblin siege, I'd guess maybe 100 or so mounted on beak dogs? I lost 21 mostly-legendary warriors beating them back. I think my total army was about 35 dorfs. I think it might have been exhaustion, or they were simply surrounded and overwhelmed.

I think size matters. In the past, I've often built a fail-safe death trap to protect against any eventuality. A long catwalk, covered with weapon traps, crossing a very deep pit usually works well. Last time I ran one, made it about 10 z-levels and the few goblins who survived the fall unmaimed were easily mopped up.

On the other hand, that kind of security gets boring after a while.